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Based on the first six days of rankings from AppData, It is clear that Facebook Poke's moment in the sun at the top of Apple's iOS App Store rankings was as ephemeral as the Snapchat messages it is designed to compete with. As I wrote when Facebook announced that they were working on the app (only days before they actually released it), The Kids Like Snapchat Because It's NOT Facebook. As for the grownups who make up the bulk of Facebook's users, many downloaded it, but few knew what to do with it.

Brian X. Chen in the New York Times Bits blog pronounced Facebook Poke to be, "a bit of a head-scratcher for adults, like me and my Facebook friends, who aren’t inclined to sext with one another. We’re more used to uploading photos of pets, food, babies and concerts, which aren’t nearly as provocative." This is one of a series of miscalculations by Facebook about their ability to clone a popular app and bend it to its will.

Before I get to the possible reasons why Poke is not the runaway success Zuckerberg and Co. were probably hoping for, let's let the data tell the tale. Facebook Poke hit the #1 position on the iOS App Store's free apps chart on the day after its release. Four days later, it was at number 50. Keep in mind that the Western world's largest social network was marketing this to the 125 million users of its iOS app. Snapchat, the young upstart, took a temporary hit in the first few days after Poke's release, slipping from 6th to 8th in the free app rankings, but by today it had rebounded back up to #3 (compared to Poke's #50.)

This is a short time series, just a week, so it is still possible that there will be more to the story. But, if I had to extrapolate from the current data, I would say that Poke is a bomb and that its only succes is in making Snapchat even more popular!

On the one hand, it's admirable that Facebook is trying to be nimble (like Instagram, for example) and built their app in a reported 12 days. And it's cool that Mark Zuckerberg himself had a hand in writing some of the code. But after that, the cool factor abruptly evaporates. Let me count the ways:

Not Really Ephemeral: This is Facebook, so the poke messages actually persist for two days (in order, Facebook tell us, to prevent abuse.) And, according to the terms of service, all data in your Facebook account persists until you delete your account (or longer.) In the case of the poke messages, they are encrypted and the key is supposed to be deleted after two days. But they could hang around for as much as 90 days if they are flagged for abuse. The point is, unlike how Snapchat presents it, they don't just disappear.

Not Really On-Mission: The entire fabric of Facebook is about encouraging the sharing of personal information and creating persistent bonds between real people. Snapchat has really challenged that and the kids like it because it's new and (as I've said before) NOT Facebook. The social network gets into trouble when it wants to be both a platform for app developers and also a direct competitor with them—at its will. Poke is at best a distraction and at worst a declaration of war (à la Twitter) on independent developers.

Not Really For The Audience: As Chen wrote in the Bits blog, a big chunk of Facebook's users (and perhaps a particularly high proportion of iOS users) have no use for Poke. You can get some of them to use it through growth hacking techniques, but that would turn a simple product into an even more annoying one. Snapchat can be so simple because its audience wants to use it. If motivation is low, the product has to be easy to use AND users have to be constantly reminded to use it. Is it worth it?

Not Really Very Nice: I realize that this is business, but rushing out a competing app while an upcoming competitor is negotiating funding is unseemly. Facebook doesn't want to have to spend a $ billion again like it did with Instagram, but this attempt to crush Snapchat before it has its wings seems monopolistic and mean. I thought this was all about friends!

Now, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is just a lark for Facebook and they have no attachment to the outcome. For their sake, I hope so, because Snapchat seems to be bouncing back from the threat just fine.